A FAILED TRANSFERphysical scuffles in the workplace, members of the supervisory board who claim to have been abused and a police unit that is mysteriously withdrawn… what happened this week at the Telecommunications Authority of Suriname (TAS) is a low point in Surinamese administrative culture and has nothing to do with professional business operations. It was an ordinary street fight in the heart of a vital state institution and of which many ‘prominents’ should be deeply ashamed.
The escalation is the direct, predictable result of the indecisive and vacillating policy of the government, which has allowed a conflict that has been dragging on for months to take its course. The warnings were loud and clear. As early as June and July of this year, (now ex?) director Wendy Jap-A-Joe and the supervisory board sent mutual accusations of conflict of interest and obstruction to president Jennifer Geerlings-Simons. Instead of decisively taking the decision at the time, she and her government chose the path of least resistance.
A government institution exists to serve society, not to act as a boxing ring for political egos
Under the guise of ‘ongoing investigations’, the quarreling parties were given space to muddle through and throw dirt and filth. That turned out to be a huge miscalculation. By not taking a clear, legally watertight decision in a timely manner about the impending termination of the director’s contract, the Geerlings-Simons government created a vacuum and thus laid the ground for a conflict that got out of hand. The result is an embarrassing stalemate in which the law (five-year term) and an employment contract have become diametrically opposed to each other.
However, what makes the situation extra toxic is the way in which the Abop immediately seizes this governance crisis for party political gain. The fierce reactions in the National Assembly, the demonstrative leaving of the meeting room and the public lashings of chairman Ronnie Brunswijk towards the supervisory board and the police are not motivated by concern about telecom policy. It’s a flat out power struggle.
The Abop uses this conflict opportunistically to defend its own political territory and gain its right. Brunswijk’s claim that a contract has been “tacitly extended” without notice is a piece of creative nonsense that serves purely to keep a pawn – whether it functions properly or not – in the saddle.
At the same time, the sudden change in the security of BEP Minister Raymond Landveld of Transport, Communications and Tourism by his (Abop) colleague Harish Monorath of Justice and Security – no matter how persistently this is denied – raises serious questions about the use of state bodies as a means of political pressure.
This incident transcends TAS. It exposes the deep, dysfunctional divisions within the governing coalition. As long as coalition partners regard vital parastatal companies as political estates, Surinamese citizens will continue to suffer. The Surinamese constitutional state cannot afford this kind of administrative and political anarchy.
The government must stop squeezing in and out. Independent, legal arbitration is immediately needed to cut administrative knots – such as with the TAS. Above all, political interference must stop immediately. A government institution exists to serve society, not to act as a boxing ring for political egos.
